Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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American Folk-Music Settings

Recordings

'Hamelin's pleasure in this repertoire—challenging to the pianist, delightful to the listener—is manifest in every bar' (BBC Music Magazine)'The wizardry of Grainger's invention is never out of step with Hamelin's fingers—all 20 (or so it seems) of them. Try and keep your lower jaw in pla ...» More

Details

Spoon River (AFMS No 1) is an American folk-dance which was heard and notated by Captain Charles H Robinson from a fiddler at a country dance in Bradford, Illinois, in 1857. Robinson sent the tune to Edgar Lee Masters (whose Spoon River Anthology appeared in 1914) because of the likeness of the two titles. Masters in turn passed it to his friend Grainger who made his setting between March 1919 and January 1922. The tune is archaic in character: typically American and yet akin to certain Scottish and English dance-tune types. In setting Spoon River Grainger wrote that he was aiming ‘at preserving a pioneer blend of wistfulness and sturdy persistence’. The tune’s sixteen bars are treated by Grainger in a variety of different harmonizations and he asks that the climax of the piece should be played with ‘fingers, wrist and arm as stiff as possible’.